To the Spring Equinox and Beyond

by Sōseki Natsume

  With these inconsistent words as a parting shot, Keitaro whisked round the automobile at the gate as if to say, "Damn that car!"

  After finishing the interview, Keitaro had planned to visit a friend who had recently married and settled in a new house in Tsukiji, talking with him till evening and offering an enjoyable account of the relations with Sunaga, Sunaga's cousin, and his uncle, all pieced together by the string of his imagination. When he left Taguchi's front gate and stood beside Hibiya Park, however, his mind was too full to carry out his plan. He found nothing to cheer him in having visited the home of the woman he had seen from behind, that woman whose whereabouts he had finally located. Even less was he aware of having gone there to find a job. The only thing that filled his mind was an annoyance resulting from feelings of humiliation. And he felt that Sunaga, who had introduced him to a man like Taguchi, should assume full responsibility for the treatment he had received. He thought of dropping in on Sunaga on the way home and, after recounting all that had happened, laying before him to his heart's content all these grievances.

  He turned around and caught a streetcar straight to Ogawamachi. His watch indicated it was about twenty minutes to two. Arriving at Sunaga's house, he deliberately called his friend's name twice from the street, but whether he was in or out, the upstairs screens remained closed. The rather prim Sunaga, who had told him he hated being called in this boorish way, might have been ignoring Keitaro's shout even if it had reached him. So Keitaro went up to the lattice door at the entrance to make a formal call. When he heard the maid at the door say that Sunaga had gone out just after noon, he stood there disappointed, silent for a moment.

  "I thought he had a cold."

  "Yes, he did, but he said he felt better today and went out."

  Keitaro was about to leave when the maid said, "Just a minute, please. I'll inform his mother," and left Keitaro standing inside the lattice door. Sunaga's mother soon appeared from behind the open sliding door. She was a tall woman with an elongated face and manners in the refined lower-town style.

  "Please do come in. He ought to be back before long."

  Keitaro, unaccustomed to Edo etiquette, had not yet learned how to decline and depart. Besides, the flow of her words reaching his ears was so smooth that he could hardly find a pause for declining her invitation. Her words were not conventional compliments. In fact, while he was being detained, he seemed to forget the reserve he should have maintained because of the trouble he was causing her, and he felt it would be a pity not to keep her company.

  Keitaro finally found himself seated in Sunaga's study. Remarking that it was cold, Sunaga's mother closed the sliding doors and urged Keitaro to warm his hands over the glowing charcoal brazier. As he did so, the agitation he had felt for some time slowy began to subside. He looked at the sliding doors with their huge pattern printed over the white silk paper and then at the small brazier, perhaps made from mulberry, bright with its yellow sheen. Meanwhile, the mother, gentle, eloquent, and seemingly tactful in dealing with every kind of person, talked on. He learned that Sunaga had gone to visit an uncle living in Yarai.

  "I asked him," she said, "to go around to Kobinata to visit the temple there, for it lies that way. And he left scolding me: 'Lately, mother, you've gotten to be a stay-at-home. You sent me there last time too instead of going yourself, didn't you? Because of your age, is that it?' You know, he caught a cold the other day and still has a sore throat. So I said he had best not go today. Usually he's rather cautious in his habits, but he is, like other young men, reckless at times and takes no heed of the words of an old woman. . . ."

  Whenever Keitaro called on Sunaga and found him absent, his mother would talk of her son in this manner, as if it were the one and only pleasure in her life. Should Keitaro bring up the subject, say, of Sunaga's reputation among his friends, it was her habit to dwell on it eternally, the topic not easily changed. Keitaro was accustomed to this, and on this occasion as well was patiently listening, acknowledging what she was saying with many a nod of the head and waiting for a pause in her flow of words.

  In time the subject of their talk drifted from Sunaga to his uncle at Yarai. Keitaro had heard from Sunaga that this uncle was his mother's younger brother and, unlike the uncle at Uchisaiwaicho, was a man of aesthetic tastes. Keitaro still remembered anecdotes about this uncle's insisting it was a disgrace to wear an overcoat whose lining was not satin or about his habit of treasuring what seemed to Sunaga a quite useless thing—he couldn't tell if it was a gem or coral—proudly dubbing it "an Indian jewel imported of old."

  "His life," Keitaro said, "is really enviable. What's better than to be able to live in luxury doing nothing?"

  "Oh no, it's far from that," said Sunaga's mother, quickly contradicting him. "To be quite frank, at best he can just manage to get along. He's not at all so fortunate as to be able to live luxuriously or even comfortably."

  As the question of the wealth of Sunaga's uncle had little to do with Keitaro, he said no more about him. She resumed her talk immediately then as if a break in their conversation indicated some flaw in herself.

  "Fortunately, my sister's husband seems well off due to his connections to several companies. But my brother's family and my own are, so to speak, no better than lordless samurai, and often we laugh together over our lives, saying we've become as poor as crows when we consider what we once were."

  Somehow reminded of his own state, Keitaro felt a secret shame. Luckily, Sunaga's mother continued talking uninterruptedly, so he was able to dispense with the trouble of finding words to respond with. Thinking this at least a convenience, he continued listening.

  "Besides, as you know quite well, Ichizo is such an unenterprising boy. So even after his graduation from the university, I'm not free from worry. I'm quite at a loss. Sometimes I tell him to hurry and find some nice girl to be his wife and to give his old mother peace of mind. He takes no notice of what I say though, telling me that in this world things don't take place just to convenience me. It would comfort me if he would at least ask someone to help him find a job—any kind of job whatever—but about that too he cares not at all. . . ."

  Keitaro, who had always thought Sunaga selfish in this regard, said sympathetically, "It may sound presumptuous coming from me, but how about asking the advice of someone in a position superior to your son? Say the uncle at Yarai you spoke about just now?"

  "But that one too has the queerest ideas, isolating himself as he does from all society. Instead of advice, he says that only a fool would serve in a bank and rattle away his life on an abacus. How could I depend on someone with that kind of notion? And that delights Ichizo all the more. He calls on him quite often, saying he likes his Yarai uncle better than others and agrees with him more. Since it was Sunday and fine outdoors, I thought it best for him to visit his uncle at Uchisaiwaicho before he left for Osaka, but he said he preferred Yarai and ended going where he wished."

  Keitaro's mind now reverted to the reason he had rushed to this house that day. He had thought that as soon as he saw Sunaga, he would, with the harshest words the occasion demanded, reprove him for the unfair treatment he had received and would leave him with some such speech as "Remember, I'm determined never to enter the gate of that house again!" Sunaga, however, for whom these words were intended, was out, so quite the reverse, Keitaro had been talked to on many subjects by Sunaga's mother, who knew nothing about these circumstances concerning him, and quite naturally Keitaro's anger had faded. But it would be better and even necessary to inform the mother, even though she was not concerned in the matter, of how the interview with Taguchi had failed. Accordingly, when the question of Sunaga's visit to Uchisaiwaicho drifted into their talk, Keitaro thought it the best moment to inform her of the particulars.

  "To tell the truth," Keitaro began, "I too visited your relative at Uchisaiwaicho today."

  "Oh, did you?" said Sunaga's mother, her face suggesting she was apologizing for having been so concerned about her son she had fai
led to pay attention to Keitaro's situation. She must have known perfectly well either by seeing it herself or hearing of it from her son that Keitaro had been desperately trying to find a job for some days past, that after several unsuccessful efforts he had asked Sunaga for an introduction, and that Sunaga had arranged an interview for him with his uncle at Uchisaiwaicho. She was probably thinking that with this knowledge about Keitaro's circumstances, a considerate person ought to have asked him about it before he had mentioned it himself.

  With this observation of her state of mind, Keitaro tried to make his words into an introduction of the entire course of events that had taken place. But the interjections she uttered every now and then—"That is certainly correct!" or "My, what an unfortunate occurrence!" —which could be interpreted as sympathetic to either party, caused him to omit from his narrative all the abusive language he had used in his fit of anger. After many a repetition of the word "Sorry," she said as if defending Taguchi, "He's truly an enormously busy man. So much so that even my sister, living under the same roof, is unlikely to have even a single day in the week to talk with him undisturbed. I can't stand by indifferently, so I often say to him, 'What good, Yosaku-san, is all the money you earn if you ruin your health by such hard labors! Relax a little. The condition of your body is everything, is it not?' And he replies, 'My thought exactly. But business comes to a boil so quickly that unless you ladle it out soon, it spoils. It can't be helped.' And so he laughs away my advice. But then he sometimes surprises his wife and daughters by saying, as if the idea had just struck him, 'I'm taking all of you to Kamakura. Go get ready.'"

  "He has daughters?"

  "Yes, two. And both at the marriageable age. Sooner or later the parents will have to find them husbands, either marrying them off or getting them husbands willing to take the girls' family name as their own."

  "Isn't one of them expected to become your son's wife?"

  For a moment words failed her. Keitaro realized he had gone too far in trying to satisfy his curiosity. He was wondering how he could change the subject when she said, "Well, I don't know. There are always the parents' feelings to consider. And I can't be certain of what's between the two persons in question unless I ask them. In such matters, however eagerly one may desire to do this or that, one can't bring about what one really wishes."

  At these significant words, Keitaro's curiosity, which had been receding, started to roll forward, but he checked its improper impetus.

  Sunaga's mother continued to defend Taguchi. Sometimes, due to being so busy, he might possibly have been unable to keep a promise in spite of his good intentions. But once he took something upon himself, he never let it drop. Whether by way of caution or comfort, she advised Keitaro to wait for Taguchi's return from his trip and to see him again when he could spare more time.

  "The uncle at Yarai, even when he's at home, won't see anyone, and there's nothing to be done about it. But the one at Uchisaiwaicho has such character that he'll run back home as soon as he has time for someone who has come during his absence. When he returns from his journey, I'm sure he'll say something to Ichizo, even without a word from us. You may depend upon that."

  Her words made Keitaro feel Taguchi must certainly be this kind of man. But he would show kindness only to those who behaved well, certainly not to someone who had gone off in a rage as he had that day. Because it was too late to confide this fact to her, Keitaro remained silent.

  "With that face of his," Sunaga's mother went on with a slight laugh to herself, "he's quite waggish, and yet he has more sincerity than his appearance suggests."

  The epithet "waggish" least coincided with Keitaro's idea of Taguchi's character judging from his appearance and behavior. But on hearing some anecdotes about him, Keitaro thought the word might not be inappropriate.

  Once, long ago, when Taguchi had stopped at a teahouse, he had said to the maid, "This electric lamp is too hot. Will you make it a little dimmer?" A puzzled look on her face, the maid asked if she should bring a smaller bulb. "No," Taguchi said quite seriously. "I'm just asking you to turn it down to make it dim." The maid, who probably took him for a man up from the country where no electric lights were used, said giggling, "You see, sir, an electric light can't be turned down like an oil lamp. When turned, it simply goes out—like this!" With a click she turned off the light and, after leaving the room in darkness for a moment, turned it on again, uttering a loud "Boo!" Not the least intimidated, Taguchi said, "Why, such an old-fashioned light still in use here? It's unworthy of the fine reputation of your house. You'd better ask a dealer right away for the latest kind. You'll have to wait your turn." His advice was given with such plausibility that the maid, much impressed, finally said in approval of the innovation, "Yes, this light is certainly very inconvenient. I guess it must be bad for people who want to go to bed with the light on."

  Another story—a much more elaborate one—concerned a business trip to Shimonoseki, or maybe it was Moji. Something had prevented A, Taguchi's companion, from going with him at the same time, so Taguchi had been waiting two days for him at an inn. To kill time, he devised a trick to play on his friend. The idea occurred to him as he was walking and found himself in front of a photographer's shop. He went inside and bought a picture of one of the geisha of the city. On the back of the photograph he wrote, "To my dear A," and then wrapping it to make it look like a gift, attached a note that he hired a woman to write, giving her ample time to word it coquettishly enough to captivate the man as much as possible. It was composed with sufficient tenderness to please any man receiving it, including such intimacies in it as her reading in the newspaper about his arrival the next day and her writing after so many months of his absence and wishing him to come to such and such a place as soon as he read her note. That evening Taguchi himself mailed the note, received it himself when it was delivered the next day, and waited for A to arrive. When A came, Taguchi did not produce the letter at once. He diligently kept their consultation on the topic of business matters, as if these were of the utmost importance, until they sat down for dinner, whereupon, as if suddenly reminded, he took out the letter from his kimono sleeve and handed it over.

  Finding the envelope marked "Confidential and Urgent," A put down his chopsticks, opened the letter immediately, rapidly read down the note, slipped the picture out of the wrapper, and, as soon as he glanced at the back of the photograph, rolled everything into a heap and stuffed it into the front of his kimono. Taguchi asked if he had anything urgent to do, to which A replied, "Well, no, nothing in particular," and absent-mindedly picked up his chopsticks again. But his manner grew restless, and though their business discussion had not yet concluded, he said before withdrawing to his own room, "Excuse me awhile. I've got a pain in my stomach."

  Taguchi summoned a maid, told her that A would depart within the quarter hour, ordered her to ready a rickshaw for him and to tell the driver that as soon as A got in to rush forward without waiting for instructions and to set him down in front of the house to which he intended to go.

  Taguchi himself went to the same house before his friend arrived. Immediately calling the mistress, he told her that such and such a gentleman would be arriving in a rickshaw with the name of his inn marked on the lantern, that she should show him into a clean room the moment he arrived, that she should treat him very attentively and inform him before he said a word that his companion had long been waiting for him, and, these words uttered, withdraw at once and return to Taguchi to report the man's arrival.

  Then Taguchi smoked on alone with arms folded as he waited. Finally, with everything proceeding as planned, he knew it was time to make his own appearance. He went to the room adjoining his friend's, opened the sliding door between the rooms, and greeted him: "Well, thanks for coming so soon." A, his face paling, was astounded. Taguchi sat before him and confessed to all the details of his practical joke. Laughing, he said, "Let me treat you tonight—because of my tomfoolery."

  Sunaga's mother laughed too as if
amused by the story she had told. "That's the kind of wag he is, you see."

  Keitaro returned to his boardinghouse thinking, "Surely that automobile wasn't one of his practical jokes."

  Since the automobile incident Keitaro had given up the idea of counting on Taguchi for help. At the same time he felt his attempt to know the real identity of the woman he had seen from behind and whom he had assumed to be Sunaga's cousin had come to a thudding halt only a few steps after it had started. And in the depths of that thought was something unpleasant, something seemingly tantalizing and inconclusive.

  To this very day Keitaro had never been conscious of pursuing a thing fully under his own power. No matter what he had earnestly set out to do, be it study, sport, or anything else, he had not once followed anything through to its completion. The only thing in his life he had ever finished was his graduation from university. And even there he tended to be lazy, to lie coiled like a snake until the university of its own accord dragged him out of its campus cage. Therefore, while he had had no tedious stoppages on his path through the university, he had never felt the exhilaration one would feel, for example, in having dug through to a well after painstaking effort.

  He passed several days in a kind of daze. Suddenly he recalled a discourse he had heard in his school days, one delivered by a teacher of religion invited to the school. The man's circumstances had been such that he had no grievance against either his family or society, but of his own free will he had become a Buddhist monk. In the course of explaining his situation, he said he had chosen the religious life because he had been confronted by an inexplicable problem.

  No matter how bright and clear the skies above him, he said he felt as if he were undergoing the torment of an imprisonment coming from every direction. Trees, houses, people walking along the street, all these were clearly visible to him, yet he constantly felt as if he alone had been put into a glass cage, separated from direct contact with the outside world until his pain became so excruciating that he felt he was suffocating.